


Broke My Last Glass Jaw

by DesdemonaKaylose



Series: Banners from the Turrets [17]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Angst, Hopeful Ending, M/M, No Sex, Post-War, dealing with peacetime, impactor is fucked up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-27
Updated: 2020-02-27
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:47:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22917184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesdemonaKaylose/pseuds/DesdemonaKaylose
Summary: After the war, Impactor is at loose ends.(They were friends once, weren't they? After all this time, Impactor wonders if Megatron hasn't managed to forget.)
Relationships: Impactor/Megatron (Transformers), Megatron/Rung/Starscream (Transformers)
Series: Banners from the Turrets [17]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1265390
Comments: 43
Kudos: 118





	Broke My Last Glass Jaw

**Author's Note:**

> this was a thing we discussed in passing while writing marriage fic, and suddenly I found that I couldn't move forward in this au until I had done something with it. It turns out I have questions to ask about Impactor.

And if you don't love me now, you will never love me again—

So far as Impactor can tell, peace is a series of prison cells. He steps down off the stoop of the one-night stopover which the Greater Cybertron punitive system arranged for him after his parole was announced, with the intention that he should have a place to stay while he arranges immediate employment for himself and permanent housing. 

One night. That’s about all the difference he can tell from the before and after of a thousand year civil war. One night complimentary at the government flop house in Tetrahex. He lights up the cygar he bummed off another departing parolee, and thinks about Kup. He’s got places he can go, places he’d be taken in even if he wouldn’t be _welcome_ exactly. It’ll only be until the next time his temper gets the better of him, anyway.

This is what a guy gets, for a thousand years of dirty work and pulling another mech’s trigger for him. A series of prison cells.He doesn’t bother to wonder about Prowl’s situation; if ever a mech knew how to keep his hands clean, it’s that one.

Anyway he’s out now, might as well appreciate the sunshine while he’s got it. Can’t go back to running roughtread over Decepticon strongholds and blowing out prison ships in high orbit. Not much work for a ‘bot of his qualification up top, now that the war’s over.

He finds the theater down in the historical district, lights all down the billboard, old-fashioned scroller text in Decepticon purple. At the window, a cassette looks up from his handheld game and squints at him.

“Hey, you can’t go in,” he says. “Show’s half over already, boss says it frags up the soundscape.”

“You know who I am, minibot?” Impactor asks, showing his dentae.

“I’m a cassetticon, glitch,” the cassette says, making a truly ugly face. “And if you screw with me, Megatron is on the other side of that door, and I’d _pay_ to see him thrash your dumb Wrecker aft.”

Impactor barks a laugh and settles in against the front wall. Evening is coming in over the city like a lightweight staggering out of a bar, clouds red and scattered purple. It’s pretty quiet out, maybe because all the people are on the other side of the wall, inside in the dark.

“I heard he went and made himself some kinda _artiste,”_ Impactor says. “Couldnta gone and done that first, huh?”

“You think anybody would’ve let him near a theater before the war?” the cassette retorts. There’s a binging noise like he fired his game up again.

“True enough,” Impactor says. He’d always found Megatron’s poetry hard to listen to, not because it was bad or ugly--honestly he’d have preferred if it was that--but because it was awfully pretty, and there was nobody to listen to it but a big dumb clunker like himself. He screws the cygar tighter between his jaws and says, “He any good at it?”

Bing, beep. “Show’s really good, everybody says,” the cassette tells him. “I don’t get it, me; I’m just here ‘cause the boss manages the theater, and I go where the boss goes. It’s supposed to be pretty fancy writing. I hear people using a lot of twenty shanix words like _meta-textual.”_

“Huh,” Impactor says. And then he doesn’t say anything else, until the lights on the billboard begin to blink and the faint sound of chatter starts to pour into the lobby inside. 

“Show’s over,” the cassette says, absently. “You gonna cause trouble?”

Impactor peers through the glass at the shaded lobby, watching the first few guests trickle out. “Nah,” he says. “I’m just catching up with an old pal.”

Guests stream out slowly. There’s a lot of chatter happening in the lobby, animated talk, someone in there jabbing a ruststick at a conversational opponent like a viroblade. People who pass him leaving give him a nervous side eye, a two point doubletake tracking from his folded harpoon arm to his crest and then skittering away from his grinning face. 

He’s famous, apparently. Who'da thunk.

By the time that the playwright finally comes strolling out into the night, there’s almost no one left in the lobby. Megatron ducks through the doors, talking to a smaller bot at his hip, and stops dead in the middle of the sidewalk when he spots Impactor.

His little party is about four mechs strong--the one at his hip, some kind of scrawny radio dish trailing behind, and a couple of bickering jets. The one at his hip, talking to him, takes a step further, realizes he’s alone, and turns to see what Megatron is looking at.

“Hey there, mechs,” Impactor says, “anybody know where a guy can find a drink in this town?”

In the fluster of his party Megatron is as rock-still as a mountain. His gaze is unreadablen—he just stares at Impactor over the heads of his companions, his mouth in a flat, tight line.

The one who actually breaks the impasse isn’t either of them. There’s a flash of paint behind Megatron, and then the mech who’s either a leggy minibot or an unusually small real mech ducks underneath Megatron’s arm and sticks one hand out in greeting. 

“You must be Impactor,” he says. “Hello, good evening.”

Impactor stares at him for a second. Then he takes the hand and gives it a hard squeeze and a pump, flashing a big smile. “Heard of me, eh?”

The bot only winces a little, despite the fact that Impactor can feel his knuckles creaking. “I did a bit of psy-ops during the war, writing profiles of prominent autobots,” he says. “Your profile was especially, hm, lively.”

Impactor snatches his hand back before he can think twice about it. No ‘con spook is gonna go rooting around in _his_ processor. But then it occurs to him that Megatron’s got an even bigger thing about needles than him, and they seem to be chummy as anything. 

“Hey wait,” Impactor says, “you’re that Rum guy, right? We had a bounty out on you!” He squints down at the little ‘con. “Funny, I thought you were supposed to be a two wheeler.”

If anything, the bot looks more pained at that than he did when Impactor was crushing his hand. “It’s Rung, actually,” he says. “Like a ladder?”

“Impactor,” Megatron says, from that same spot on the sidewalk. “What’s your business at my theater?”

Impactor examines the hook of his harpoon. “Just got outta jail,” he says. “Authorities dumped me off in the middle of Tetrahex, and I thought, hey, war’s over right? Might as well pay an old buddy a hello visit. I hear you’re doing well for yourself these days.”

One of the jets, the skinnier one, shoves his way to the front of the conversation, a little wobbly on some intense thrusters. “He’s doing just _fine,”_ the jet says, jabbing a finger at Impactor, more or less. _Somebody_ went hard on the libations during the show. “And if you’re here to stir up trouble I’ll have you know that I wrote the book on retali, taliashh, tretal, the--we’re all pardoned and you can’t do aft slag about it!”

The short one, Rung or whatever, he grabs the jet gently but firmly by the arm. “Darling, why don’t you let us handle this one, alright? Everything is fine. We’re all friends here.” He looks up sharply at Impactor, although his voice stays sweet and calming. “Aren’t we, Impactor?”

Impactor shifts his weight and lifts both his arms. “War’s over, like I said,” he says. “I hear we won, although looking at y’all now, I can’t say it much looks like y’all lost.”

“I’ll say,” the other jet mutters, from the back fringes of the party. 

“So you’re not going to make trouble for any of us, are you?” Rung prompts.

“Hey, bygones, right?” says Impactor. “But you _do_ look to be doing well for yourself, Megatron. Too good to get a drink with an old buddy down on his luck?”

Megatron narrows his eyes. The moment stretches on just a tick too long, and Impactor can feel it in the air between them like an arm wrestling match that’s about to give way, right up until the little orange one says: “Oh, of course not. There’s a bistro down the road where we usually get a drink after a show, you’re welcome to come along.”

Impactor resets his optics. He reminds himself that Rum wasn’t actually this guy’s name, and then scrapes up his _actual_ name from the pit of “things Impactor didn’t think he’d actually need to remember”.

“Yeah, alright,” he says, ignoring the way the skinny jet bristles at him.

From towards the back, the lanky radio dish says, “Hey, Rung, I think Starscream needs to get home.”

 _Starscream?_ Impactor thinks, at the same time that the skinny jet says, “Frag off, you’re not on the clock, you can’t tell me what to do.”

The other jet puts a hand on his arm. “It _is_ getting late; I’ll help take Starscream home. Thank you for the lovely evening Rung, it was so nice to finally spend some time together outside of work.” He gives Rung a meaningful look, wings dipping prettily. “We absolutely will have to do it again some time.”

“Of course,” Rung says, looking pleased. “Any time, Pharma.”

“Come on, Egglet,” the jet says, hauling Starscream away, “you can help me flag down a transport.”

“It’s _Aglet,”_ the radio dish says. 

There’s some pushing and snarling, and then the drunken toothpick who is apparently Starscream, second most infamous Decepticon of all time, is bundled off into the night leaving only Megatron and who-the-frag-ever this monoformer is behind. The lights on the billboard above them buzz and fizzle out one by one. 

“Well,” Megatron says, reluctantly. “Shall we go?”

It’s a short walk down to the bistro, which is probably the nicest joint Impactor’s ever been inside. At least as clean as Maccadam’s always was, but with table settings and everything. The menu is all locally mined free trade crystals and ores that Impactor didn’t even know you _could_ make tea out of. He grimaces at the drink listing and eventually settles on something that makes him feel marginally more masculine than _rose quartz blossom in a delicate coolant medley._

“This the kind of place you’re hanging around now?” Impactor asks, as Megatron finishes his order and hands over the menu. 

Megatron freezes up for a second, before turning away. “Apparently,” he says. “Anyway, it’s run by a former Decepticon. I like to support my people economically, now that I’m banned from supporting them politically.”

Impactor gives the decore a meaningful once-over. “Never took you ‘cons for a soft touch. Not like the NAILS, you know. That’s one thing I’ll give all’a y’all--ya never gave it up easy for us.”

“Rung likes this restaurant,” Megatron says, abruptly switching his attention to a survey of available booths. 

“Huh.” Impactor strolls behind as Megatron makes a fragging military engagement out of selecting the perfect booth for them to settle at. “Who _is_ that guy, anyway? You sure let him talk for you a lot.”

“Rung is my conjunx,” Megatron says.

Impactor halts in the middle of the aisle. “Slag, really?” he says. He shoots a look back at the counter, where the little guy is leaning over the counter pointing to something on the menu. “I’d heard you got hitched, but I was sure the guy was pulling my leg.”

Megatron grunts.

“Guess your taste didn’t change much,” Impactor observes, “you always did like the highfalutin nerdy ones. But a _monoformer,_ mech? You know what they say about monoformers.” 

“I do know what they say about monoformers, and it isn’t true,” Megatron says. He’s settled on a booth, but he’s hesitating, like he’s not sure he wants to commit to sitting down. “Anyway, Rung isn’t a monoformer.”

“Nah?” Impactor squints back at Rung. “Well what’s he turn into, then? He’s hardly got any kibble.”

“No one is sure,” Megatron says. He gives a little sigh and slides into the booth, folding his hands on the table top. “He’s an extremely old model. Whenever he was made, it was well before surviving records.”

Impactor makes a face and slides into the other side of the booth. Feels like old times, for about a half a klick. Ragging on one of Megatron’s impossible crushes while they wait for drinks at some hole in the wall surface-side. He’d kick Megatron under the table and say something in a stupid falsetto probably-- _Oh, you rugged hunk of equipment, you look so good in that caution tape, take me now!_ \--and they’d have a good laugh at the expense of la-di-da mechs who were too snooty to take either of them for a ride.

And then Rung slides into the seat next to Megatron, with a bright little apology about taking so long, and the full weight of history settles in Impactor’s tanks along with the dregs of prison fuel. 

“So Impactor,” Rung says, “where are you up to, now that you’re back out in the world?” 

“Just in town for a couple days, while the parole board chips me,” Impactor says. “Don’t have a place to stay yet. No money for a hotel.”

“Not at all?” Rung asks, frowning. His eyebrows are a conversation all on their own.

“Nah,” Impactor says. He gives Megatron a sideways look. “I’m not rolling in it like you good boy ‘cons. The ‘Bots got a lot less patience for their own dirty secrets and frag ups.”

Rung looks uncomfortable. Megatron just says, “We’re hardly _rolling_ in it.”

“Sure seem like you’re doing well for yourself,” Impactor says. 

Drinks arrive. Rung gratefully accepts the tray from the waiter and passes out orders, sliding Megatron something fizzy that Impactor can’t even identify. 

“You’ve got a show running,” Impactor says. “What about the opening night take?”

Rung laughs. “Megatron spent the entire opening night take from _Prima’s Exile_ on a hotel room,” he says. “For our honeymoon, actually. It was very romantic.”

“It was the _Silverdone_ ,” Megatron admits. “I _had_ hoped to keep the reservation a secret. Unfortunately, Starscream always seems to know everywhere I’ve spent money as soon as I’ve spent it.”

“He’s got your credit account hacked,” Rung says, sipping his pink tea. 

“Of course he does,” Megatron sighs. “Remind me why you insist on keeping him around?”

“Shush,” Rung says, and turns back to Impactor. “Anyway, he spends all his money on date night, most of the time. Ah, and furniture. We must not forget the sovereign furniture.”

“What else are you supposed to do with money?” Megatron grumbles. “I’m not saving up for plasma rifles anymore, you rent the apartment, what else am I to do with it?”

Rung laughs a little, but Impactor looks at Megatron, while Megatron avoids his gaze. They were both raised down in the same mines, where all the spare credits left after fueling and renting your bunk in the catacomb were meant for sinking into engex and pleasure drones, or real buymechs, if you had the savings.

But now here’s Megatron, who--doesn’t need a buymech does he, not with a conjunx ready to finish his sentences and probably anything else he starts. Impactor swallows down some of his motor oil, rich and bitter. He’d had a hazy half thought, when he showed up at the theater--not even a real idea, maybe some mine-trash expectation buried somewhere underneath the autobot in him--

“Any major life change, even a good one, is a stressor,” Rung tells Impactor, leaning forward over his drink. “You need to be running at least a basic defrag once a day for the next several days, while you settle into the outside world. Prison life is notoriously over-structured and low on enrichment. It’ll be a loaded adjustment period.” 

Impactor grunts. 

“It’s getting late,” Rung says. “If you haven’t got a place to stay tonight, you’re welcome to stop over the night with us.”

Megatron stiffens. Rung pays him no mind.

“Unfortunately we don’t have a guest room anymore, but there’s a lounge that would be good enough to run a defrag on,” Rung says. “It should be big enough for you, if you don’t mind a bit of a squish.”

Impactor stares at him. He doesn’t think Rung understands what this conversation is about. He doesn’t think _he_ understands what this conversation is about, anymore.

He just wanted… _something_ , some retribution, some recognition--money maybe, or a nostalgic tumble in berth, or--not an _apology,_ come on, what would he do with an apology? But something.

“Yeah, okay,” he says, feeling like a bot opening the lid to his own coffin, unable to resist the morbid temptation. “Sure.” 

“Well then it’s settled,” Rung says, nodding to himself. 

Megatron looks at Impactor. Impactor looks at Megatron. There’s so much these looks say, but Impactor doesn’t know if their signals are reaching, or just dissolving unheard in the ether.

  
  


The apartment, which is Rung’s apparently, isn’t somewhere he could have imagined Megatron inside of if he’d had a million years to think about it. The lamps shaped like flowers, the charcoal biscuits on the counter in a little crystal bowl, the commercial energon filter...

“Too good to drink sludge with the rest of us, eh?” Impactor says, peering up through the bright blue liquid at the overhead lights. Crystal clear. 

Rung coughs into his little fist and then offers up a hand, implicitly expecting that Impactor will hand over the precious pitcher. Which he does. He feels clunky and oversized in this kitchen, and that’s weird, because Megatron seems to fit just fine. They’re of a size, after all, Impactor shouldn’t feel this out of place.

“I’m just going to go check on Starscream,” Rung says, as he locks the fuel up in the cold storage unit. “We shouldn’t tempt fate, letting him wake up in a house with a stranger.”

“He _lives_ with you?” Impactor asks.

“Yes,” Rung says, “that’s what I said, we don’t have a guest room anymore. Just give me a moment, won’t you, I’ll be right back.”

And then he disappears into a room off the hall, the lock clicking softly behind him. Now it’s just Megatron and Impactor again, without the buffer of a booth and drinks between them. Just these fancy lamps and a light fountain and an entertainment center that is both too involved and too out of date.

“ _That’s_ Starscream?” Impactor asks. “I thought Starscream was some kinda fighter jet. That mech from the theater looked like he barely had room for a fuselage.”

“He’s been slowly shedding bulk ever since the wedding,” Megatron says. “I don’t know what it’s all about, he goes berserk on me whenever I bring it up. I’ll admit, I like the thrusters. The rest of it seems… impractical.”

“Peace time is making everyone different,” Impactor observes. He side-eyes Megatron. “Not that war time didn’t change us all first, I guess.”

“Changing is our nature, as a species,” Megatron says. “And yet, two forms, three if you’re lucky, is all that most cybertronians will ever have. Real mechs are not like the mythical Adaptus, blessed with an infinity of shapes…”

 _I know what you mean,_ Impactor doesn’t say. There was before the war, and then there was War; he doesn’t think he can go back to the know-nothing miner he was before again. And he can’t be the Wrecker he became either, or he’ll be nothing but in and out of prison cells for the rest of his functioning. He’s burned out his T-cog, shifting from peace to war to peace again. He hasn’t got a shape left to inhabit.

He watches Megatron’s fingers play with the edge of a lunchbox someone left out on the table, closed. He wonders what he’d meant to ask for, when he came to the theater. What he would have said if Megatron’s little conjunx hadn’t gotten in the middle of it. Would they have thrown down, fought it out? Would they have just stared at each other, instead, and parted ways in silence?

Isn’t he stupid, even now, thinking there’s anything left of the bridge he put a torch to thousands of years ago?

There’s a loud thump from the spare room, and a squawk. “ _Sleeping?”_ Starscream’s voice shouts, “ _in our house?”_

Impactor can’t hear it from out here, but Rung must be murmuring some reassurance, because Starscream demands, “It’s my berth, he can’t have it!” and then “and you’re just going to _let_ him?”

And then a bit less squawking, and then quiet, and then a low sound that is almost for sure moan. Impactor squints at the wall. He definitely knows what it sounds like when someone is getting settled down to berth with a hand around their cable. He’d had it done to him a few times, when he was on a tear.

Megatron pushes off the counter. “I’m going to go make sure Rung has everything in hand,” he says.

“Sure you are,” Impactor says, smirking. But once Megatron is gone, there’s only so much snooping Impactor can do before the silence crystallizes around him, something too easy to break with a wrong touch to the wrong knick-knack. Impactor starts to get more and more wound up, pacing the floor and glaring at fragile objects that come too close to him. What’s the _point_ of having imported coolants? Why are they in those flimsy little bottles?

Megatron must have gone way soft if he’s started sleeping in that big cushy berth with those two delicate mechs and letting himself be told what to do and where to go for dinner and being held all night and kissed like--

The hall door creaked open and Rung ducks out, closing it gently behind himself. Impactor freezes, not quite touching a model spaceship suspended in an anti-grav sphere, and tries to figure out what to do with his face.

There was never any soft spoken little mech waiting for _him_ at the end of the day. Not in prison, and sure as hell not with the Wreckers. It was just more clumsy groping and macho talk while they all pretended not to be invested in the lives of their teammates. Spit slicked palms and caskets. Fumbling in the dark. 

Rung presses a finger to his lips. He makes his way back out into the main room and starts putting away items that Impactor didn’t realize were supposed to _go_ places.

It’s not that he’s jealous. Rung isn’t his type, even on his loosest nights. He likes some kibble, a big chest compartment, a bit of punch. It’s just--he doesn’t _know_ what, alright, it’s this house and that berth and the way Rung answered Megatron’s questions before he could even finish them. It’s these _slagging_ coolant bottles.

“Tell me how you got the old gritmuncher whipped so good,” Impactor says, leaning across the counter and settling onto his forearms. 

Rung winces. “I prefer not to think of it as _whipping_ anyone,” he says. 

“Yeah, but somebody’s gotta make the battle plans in a relationship, and it sure don’t look like him doing it,” Impactor says. “You’re a bossy spawn of a glitch, aren’t you?”

Rung sputters. “I--if anything-- _Starscream_ is the bossy one,” he says. “I just, I make suggestions, it’s not--”

“Yeah, you make suggestions,” Impactor says. “You suggest I come get dinner with y’all. You suggest I come spend the night. You suggest Starscream cool his jets and take a nap.”

Rung’s mouth works in confused silence. 

Impactor jerks a thumb at Starscream’s room. “And he lets you. I figured when he murdered half the government he stopped taking directions from other folks, but here you are, leadin’ em both around by the spike.”

Rung finishes putting away his things and then, like sediment settling in water, rests his weight on his elbows, mirroring Impactor across the counter.

“You know, I thought I would be talking to you the way I talk to the other autobots,” Rung says, folding his hands together. “There _is_ a certain way I talk to autobots, tones and phrases they respond to. But you’re communicating more like a Decepticon than anything else, which I find interesting.”

Impactor bristles. “I’m red through and through, pal.”

“I’m sure you are,” Rung says, and tilts his head. “But _why_ , that’s the question I find most interesting. You were Megatron’s good friend before the revolution. You were of a class. When it came time to pick badges, why did you pick red?”

Impactor scowls at him. “I’m supposed to explain that to _you?”_ he says. “You wanna tell me why you went purple, when I’ve seen a hundred high class shiny-fingered non-coms just like you over in Autobot R&D?” 

“Did you feel betrayed?” Rung asks, forging on, “That he didn’t go to break you out of prison?”

“Don’t treat me like some psy-ops project,” Impactor growls. “I’ll walk right out of this shmancy little apartment and bust your teeth in while I’m at it.”

Rung gives him a hard, long look. And then he sighs, and pulls off what Impactor had thought were his regular optics. The eyes underneath--they’re not cute, like the rest of him. They show an age.

“You’re right,” he says. He sets his glasses down on the counter. “You don’t owe me those kinds of answers. You’re not my patient, and I’m not your therapist. I’m sorry.”

Impactor blows out a sharp vent and glares at a wall. It’s true that when the prison walls went down, it wasn’t Megatron who had gone looking for him. It was the new Prime, all blazing light and gunslinger idealism, an outstretched hand, promises.

Impactor’s problem, you could say, is that deep down, he’s always drawn to the idealists. It’s a damn stupid failing, in a terminal cynic. But he can’t ever seem to shake the drive that makes him grope towards a pure thing, even while he’s trailing gunk and oil behind.

“You’re doing it again,” Rung says, apropos of nothing. When Impactor jerks his glare back to rest on Rung, the mech goes on: “You’re drawing Xs on the countertop. Are you aware you’re doing that?”

Impactor looks down, and then snatches his arms back against his sides, grabbing the edge of the counter. 

“Look,” he says, “don’t ask me about politics or justice or any of that, ‘cause I don’t know. I just worry about myself and my people and whatever’s right for us.”

“Megatron was your people, once,” Rung says. “Wasn’t he?”

That’s shrink talk, Impactor thinks. Maybe it’s hard to turn that kind of thing off, just like it’s hard for him to turn off the _wreck and rule_ running rampant through his protocols. He thinks about putting Rung’s head through the back wall for that, but he’s worried that Starscream will come stumbling back out and make _noises_ at him.

“I used to look out for him, you know that?” Impactor says. “He wasn’t always the big bad slagmaker. Glass jaw. Couldn’t hardly take a lovetap from a supervisor, nevermind he had the same armor and shielding we all had. Better maybe. His batch was a limited run, good materials. Long term investment. But he couldn’t take a punch, all the same. Maybe the spark was the glass part, not the jaw.”

When he steals a glance at Rung, the mech is watching him intently, no particular expression in his green eyes. 

Used to be Megatron’s problem with Impactor was that Impactor was too headstrong, too quick to solve a problem with his fist and his drill bit. Back in that first prison, he never could have imagined Megatron might come bust him out. Megatron? Of all mechs? Megatron was the one who needed protecting--him curled up under the table in a bar brawl, or alone in a cell with that piece-of-scrap cop half his mass wailing on him. 

“I wasn’t there,” Impactor says, the sharp hook of his left arm scratching lines into the countertop. “I beat the bearings outta Whirl later, once I got my hand on him, but it didn’t do no good. It happened on my watch, when I shoulda been minding him.”

Rung makes a closed-mouth noise. Impactor snaps his head up.

 _“What,”_ he growls.

“You just seem…” Rung searches for a word. “Troubled. You seem troubled. And it’s strange that you’d seek us out on your first day of freedom, instead of your friends from the service, or even from before the war.”

Impactor shrugs one shoulder. Yeah, he could have. But he’s here instead, in this home that isn’t and can’t be his. 

“War’s over,” he says, “but we’re still tied together, somehow. There's a thing, this whole… hanging _thing_ between us. Like a couple of convicts on a chain gang.” Impactor shakes his head, sharp enough his gears pop. “Can’t let it go, can’t put it down.”

“I see,” Rung says. “Everything that happened started with you.”

The countertop screams as Impactor snatches his arm back, rending the metal. “You better watch what you say, runt!”

Two red lights blink on in the hallway, and Megatron is there, all at once, formidable black shadow in the dark. “Is there a problem?” he asks, in a voice that probably made genericons empty their waste tanks on the spot. 

Impactor stares at him. How did he get in and out of that door so fast?

“Impactor just got his hook caught on the counter,” Rung calls out, in a voice much lighter than his actual expression. He doesn’t turn or even twitch. “It’s fine, I can probably flatten it back down with an iron.”

No one says anything. Megatron stares at Impactor, Impactor glares at Rung. Carefully, slowly, Rung reaches out and pries the hook free of the rucked-up metal.

“There,” Rung says. The wicked barb catches a flash of light as Impactor turns it over, grim-faced.

“Why don’t you come to bed,” Megatron says. It’s not a suggestion. For a moment, Impactor means to respond as if it’s _him_ Megatron is talking to. And then Rung calls back, “One moment, you go ahead!”

Megatron retreats into the master bedroom reluctantly. His eyes burn all the way down the hall, never shifting or breaking their gaze. When he’s gone, even though Rung can’t see his lights disappearing behind the bedroom door, the mech gives a little sigh. 

“Let me help you with the couch,” Rung says.

There’s nothing really to do with the couch but lay down on it. There’s no plug-in, and Impactor doesn’t need froo-froo blankets and tarps and all the rest. He was a commando. He can sleep in the dirt if he needs to. Still, Rung makes a fuss over the sparse pillows.

“What’s it to you, anyway,” Impactor asks, as Rung dithers over the unfluffable pillow for the third time. 

“Hmm?”

“Why’re you so interested in me?”

Without looking up, Rung says, “If I have a vice, it’s curiosity.”

Yeah, he’d buy that. It’s also definitely not an answer, not by a long shot.

“Go on,” Rung says, “lay down.”

But Impactor doesn’t want to lay down. He doesn’t want to be folded up into this little mech’s couch and fussed over and looked down at like a sparkling fresh out of the field, he doesn’t want to be _soft_ , he doesn’t know _how_ to be soft, and god damn Megatron for making it all look so easy. One night stop overs and prison cells--all these temporary halfway houses, all these doorsteps, all these people he can’t ever afford to get attached to--

He wanted a home and maybe some part of him still thought Megatron could be it. Maybe he’d thought they could go back. Maybe he’d already known better, and maybe he’d gone anyway. 

He was stupid to come here. Stupid to think that anything he did would matter, after all this time.

“The hell with this,” he says. 

Rung looks up. “What?”

Impactor takes a step back. If he had a bag he’d pick it up now, but all he’s got is a subspace with a burned out cygar and some parole papers. So he just turns around and heads for the door.

“Impactor?” Rung calls after him. “What are you doing?”

Impactor waves a hand vaguely over his shoulder. “I’m gonna get a move on. Y’all don’t need me here, tracking mud on your nice white rug.”

“It’s egg-shell,” Rung says, dumbly. And then his little feet patter fast over the floor as he rushes to catch up with Impactor. “Wait, now, hold on! Did I say something wrong? If it really matters to you, I’m happy to answer questions about myself, let’s just--”

Impactor stops at the door, and Rung runs into his back. The little mech bounces off like a wad of tinfoil. “This is stupid,” Impactor says, glaring down over his shoulder. “I’m not playing house with you, sparklefingers. I don’t belong in a home like this, and everyone here knows it.”

“You don’t need to attribute the apartment some kind of cosmic significance,” Rung says, sounding miffed. “You’re an old friend, you need a place to lay down for a few hours--”

“I’m not _your_ friend,” Impactor snaps, “I’m not even _his_ friend. We’re fooling ourselves if we think that’s even on the table after everything I let happen.”

“You’re talking about the war?” 

“I’m talking about _everything!”_

“I’m not following.”

“You were _right,”_ Impactor says. “You wanted to know why I went with Prime. It’s ‘cause I’d already done the most damage a mech can do, and I had to make right. I started that fight, and I couldn’t finish it.” He squares his shoulders. “Whatever walked out of that jail and on to Messantine, it wasn’t Megatron. It wasn’t _our_ Megatron. ‘Cause our Megatron, he never woulda done that slag in Tesaurus, or Vos. He wouldn’t have let that happen. He wouldn’t have let them do it.”

“I think we both know Megatron is a willful, stubborn, unsettlingly clever powerhouse of a mech even when he _doesn’t have an army behind him._ Do you think you’re responsible for choices he made fully under his own power?”

“He busted the world wide open, and it’s me who was responsible for looking after him.”

“I’m sorry,” Rung says, “do you think you’re the only one to blame for this?” He waves a hand at the walls, at the furniture, at everything. “For the world? For the entire course of history? You’re one mech Impactor, you might as well blame the wind, or the day of the week.”

“Megatron was the best of us,” Impactor says, looking away. “He knew right from wrong. He was soft. And they took him and they killed that mech, ‘cause I was too busy busting heads to think about what would happen to him once the heads were busted.”

 _“Impactor,”_ Rung says. He says it so meaningfully, like it’s important. “I care deeply for Megatron. I love him enough that I left my home for him, and then I stayed with him when I wanted to go, which was the harder thing. But Megatron is and always has been an imperfect mechanism. He wasn’t killed and then replaced somewhere between that bar fight and the start of the war. It’s only, ever, been Megatron.”

“You didn’t know him back then,” Impactor says, roughly. 

“I know him now,” Rung says. “And you could too.”

Impactor stares at the door, jaw working silently.

“We’ve all done things we aren’t proud of,” Rung says. “We’ve all our private sins to make amends for. People we let down. Things we should have said no to. Ends that turned out not to be worth the means. If you became a wrecker to undo the damage you feel you’ve done, congratulations; the war is over, and your side won. Don’t add old guilt to the new.”

Impactor stiffens. He’d forgotten that Rung was a spook--he probably knows better than anyone on the ‘Con side what Impactor is guilty of.

There’s a hesitant touch on Impactor’s forearm. “It doesn’t have to end in mourning,” Rung observes. “Just because he doesn’t need protecting anymore doesn’t mean that he’s lost to you forever.”

Impactor thinks of burning bridges. Impactor thinks of thousand year silences, signals lost in transmission, he thinks of saying goodbye with his fist and his shoulder so that he can’t hear someone else say goodbye first. He thinks of Megatron on the sidewalk, once-familiar optic unreadable.

All those years. All that guilt. Has it only ever been Impactor, the same as it’s only ever been Megatron?

“Now come on,” Rung says sternly, “you’re not going out there like this. No money, no hotel. Honestly. The parole office doesn’t even open until sixth bell, and I know this from experience.”

Has it only, ever, been them?

Fearless, Rung closes both hands around Impactor’s harpoon arm and tugs him back towards the couch.

“I could break your wrist,” Impactor tells him.

“Do you want me to let go?” Rung asks, carefully. “You can just say so.”

“Let go,” Impactor says. Somehow he’s nonplussed when Rung obliges, like he thought something else was going to happen. Hell knows what. 

“There,” Rung says. He takes a step back. “Now. Lay down, run a defrag cycle, and then in the morning we’ll all have breakfast. Starscream will tell us all about his hangover, and you can try to go two consecutive sentences without baiting Megatron into a spike measuring contest. It’ll be horrible, and you’ll feel much better by the end of it.”

It’s not exactly the encouragement he was expecting. Weirdly, though, it does make the prospect seem more… survivable. He’s handled worse than that.

“It doesn’t have to end with this,” Rung tells him. “You won’t know until you try. But you have to try. You see?”

There’s a bumping and thumping in one of the bedrooms, and then Starscream’s reedy whine calling: “Ruunnnnggg, come say goodnight to meee!”

Rung quirks a smile. That’s what satisfaction must look like, what happiness must look like. Something bitter bubbles up at the back of Impactor’s intake. For the first time tonight, though, he doesn’t hate Rung for it.

“Goodnight,” Rung says. “Get some rest, please.”

And despite the unguarded door and the empty inviting streets beyond, where no one wants or expects anything of him but his feterless bitter trog onward into the next waiting prison cell, Impactor lays down, and Impactor does.

**Author's Note:**

> [coughs]   
> Speculative Rung/Megatron/Impactor located [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25391620/chapters/61572703)


End file.
